Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano - INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern - Weekly Wrap 3-OCT

Oct. 4, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano

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INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern - Weekly Wrap 3-OCT

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	Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom.
	Today is Friday, October 3rd, 2025.
	It's the end of the day, the end of the week, our favorite time and our favorite program, the intelligence community roundtable with my dear and longtime friends Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson.
	Gentlemen, thank you and welcome here.
	Thank you for the double uh duty.
	Larry, to you first.
	Did Tyler Robinson, the young man arrested in Utah and charged with the murder of Charlie Kirk, pull the trigger on the weapon that propelled the bullet that killed Charlie.
	No, no, he he's innocent of that.
	Uh, if he fired any rifle, it's not the one that the FBI's claiming.
	Uh the the round that killed Charlie uh uh Kirk was not a 306.
	You know, early on we thought so, but then once once you you know finally saw that there was no exit wound, it was impossible that uh 30 odd six round uh would have been the the device that killed him.
	Uh it was it was more likely what's called a frangible round, it's a round that was designed that the bullet breaks up upon entering the human body or upon hitting uh an object.
	Uh so this was uh I don't know why the FBI rushed in such a way with no good evidence, and particularly, you know, the FBI is supposed to be better than this.
	The cash patel has turned this into a clown show in my view.
	It's it's disgusting and it's despicable.
	Well, well, is your analysis that somebody else killed Charlie or that it was a different weapon from the one the FBI claims?
	When you watch the video of the minute after the shot, is just as the shot breaks, it looks like you you've been to a sporting event where people do the wave, you know, they stand up.
	Only in this case, it was the opposite of the wave.
	Everybody was sitting down and it went from Charlie's left to the right.
	Now, if the shot had come from behind, it would have been coming forward.
	Instead, the crowd is moving from left to right.
	That right there tells you it was somebody else than Tyler Robinson.
	If in fact that was Tyler Robinson on the roof.
	We have no evidence that that's him.
	The fact that the FBI comes out with this crap that it was like we got the screwdriver that was used to disassemble the rifle.
	Go online and you can disassemble one of those in maybe 43 seconds.
	But they were saying he did it in a matter of two or three seconds.
	So I mean, it's just lie piled upon lie.
	FBI has got a major credibility issue here.
	Why would Ray?
	I haven't forgotten your that you're there bear with me.
	That's okay.
	I'm interested.
	I know, I know.
	Why would the FBI lie unless they're trying to cover up for somebody?
	Ding ding ding ding ding.
	We have a winner.
	Yeah, that's exactly what's going on.
	They're covering it up.
	Um, there are a lot of strange coincidences.
	One strange coincidence uh via Candace Owens, who spoke to Charlie Kirk uh days two days before this.
	Charlie had made the decision that he was going to stop taking money from the Zionist.
	That's both Christian and Jewish Zionists.
	He didn't like the fact that they were giving money and pressuring him, telling him that he can't have Tucker Carlson, he can't have Dave Smith, he can't have Meghan Kelly at his rallies.
	And he goes, No, no, you're not going to exercise that kind of control.
	I'm gonna stop taking your money.
	Two days later, he's dead.
	Coincidence.
	Or the fact that the FBI, the head of the FBI that was sent out there to Utah to oversee the investigation, came from an office in Connecticut that shared they shared the office building with Anti-Defamation League, who Cash Patel just two days ago cut all FBI ties with.
	Just, again, coincidence.
	So the weapon that we've seen, the bolt-action rifle, is not the weapon that killed him because the round that it shoots it would have caused radically different damage to Charlie's body than was caused by the bullet that hit him.
	Do I have that right?
	Yeah, it would have it would have either exploded his head, literally, severed half of his head.
	Uh, there's a I've posted a video at Sonar21.com.
	I saw it.
	I was afraid to watch it.
	I thought it was going to show the killing, and then of course we're not nobody wants to have that in their mind.
	But this was done by this uh army retired army uh special forces sergeant.
	Um he is it goes by Vahala VFT as his channel, and you know, he shot uh uh a quarter inch steel plate, a three-eighth inch steel plate, and then a half-inch steel plate, because remember the this was the the spokesman for Turning Point USA say Charlie's neck was like steel to stop the bullet.
	Well they fire a 308 at each of those steel plates, it goes completely through the quarter inch and the three-eighth inch, and it makes a heavy indentation and deflects off of the half inch.
	I guarantee you, nobody, no human neck is the equivalent of a half inch of steel, number one.
	So, and it also shows that that bullet uh when it hit when it was fired at the femur of a you know, the bone from a cow femur, shattered the bone.
	Uh so this uh why the FBI would go out with such a lame story, one that's so easily disproven.
	And that's why I say Tyler Robinson, if this if this case goes to court, you know, unless they do the Epstein treatment on him, if the case gets to court, he'll be acquitted.
	Does uh defense counsel have your contact information, Larry?
	Tell you what, Ray Charles could prosecute this one.
	Oh boy.
	All right, Ray.
	Continuing in the genre of let's correct the public record from what everybody thinks category.
	Uh when Israel and the United States attacked Iran in June, were they truthful when they claimed that they believed that the Iranians were within days of developing a nuclear weapon?
	Or have you seen documents that were linked from somewhere that would indicate that they were not being truthful?
	Well, well, Judge, it's it's it's this story all over again.
	This book was written by a good friend of mine, Gareth Porter.
	Uh, he interviewed everybody and his brother 12 years ago, okay, when Netanyahu was showing this bomb, right?
	And uh he's written a really good book about all this stuff and how the Israelis have adduced it every time.
	This time we happen to know because of leaks of actual transcripts of talks between Netanyahu and his senior command.
	Before that attack on the 13th, uh 13th of June, I guess the 13th, I remember.
	Yeah.
	Um what happened was uh he he said, Well, you know, we're not we're gonna decapitate, we're gonna and the military see, of course, uh uh we well the long term we went long term prevent them from getting a bomb, but you know, it's that's a long term long term is about 10 to 30 years.
	Not only did it indicate that Netanyahu and all those people had no idea about Iran being just about to get a nuclear bomb, the only per person that may have believed that apparently was Donald Trump.
	But there was a recognition that this was never true, and there was a recognition in these documents that uh Netanyahu felt that uh Trump had assured him that he would come into the fray once if Israel got retaliatory strikes from Iran, which of course they did, and which Trump did, and then when they become too ferocious for the Signorhu.
	That's what he called his his daddy, uh he called Trump, but he said, look, now we need a deal.
	They're they're they're creaming me.
	Now, what's gonna happen now with these tankers and all those things headed out that way?
	I just don't know.
	But I I guess maybe I'll inject here my my major fear that Trump is not okay.
	I mean, the way the teenagers say it today, you know, he's not okay.
	What do you mean he's not okay physically or mentally?
	I mean both.
	Uh now I'm not an expert on the physical thing, but look of it at his uh as is our plus long address to the United Nations, and then this thing at uh Quantico on Tuesday.
	He's not okay.
	And you know, that is not okay if you're getting let me say it that way.
	Right.
	And so what that means is that uh neither the Russians or the Chinese nor the Venezuelans, nor anybody can depend on a cogent um uh sensible approach to the problems that Trump has raised with them.
	So I think the Russians are trying to play it cool, but it's more a matter of more matter of uh what's the word appeasement for God's sake.
	They don't want to ride this guy, and so they're being extra nice, and Putin pretty much said that yesterday.
	Larry, how carefully would Russian Intel have scrutinized everything Trump said, every movement of his hands, his mouth, his eyes, and every word he articulated in that uh 90-minute Fidel Castro-like speech before the 800 generals and admirals.
	Oh, yeah, the they watched it, uh I'm sure they watched it intently.
	I think that in what Ray's referring to is Trump sounded like uh Dustin Hoffman in the moon, you know, uh Rain Man, you know, talking in a monotone voice.
	I'm the greatest in the world, and the world wouldn't, you know, there no inflection, no up and down, no, you know, it was no emotion.
	Uh any talk about used to make fun of uh you know Joe Biden being low energy.
	Hello, you know, he he looked like he needed the energies energizer bunny to come on stage and charge him up.
	Uh so yeah, the but uh is Ray noted.
	If I I watched uh the Val uh Putin's speech of Val Dai carefully, and I wrote a piece yesterday outlining sort of what he you know, sort of what he had to say about Trump.
	And he's not taking any any of the Trump bait.
	He's not uh there there are areas in which um he could push back and and um and say something scathing or derogatory about Trump, but he just stand on the high road.
	Um they're gonna Russia's gonna keep doing what it's gonna do, and and Putin made it very clear that if the United States uses a long-range missile to hit inside Russia, that that will change the nature of the relationship.
	Well, absolutely.
	But but you know, I think a lot of this stuff was surrounding the tomahawk.
	Right now, the only tomahawks in the US inventory can only be fired from aircraft or from uh submarines, so um or or for ships, uh, but uh there are no land-based systems right now, apparently available.
	So this is you know, with Kellogg talking about it, that that's just the pipe dream, number one.
	Uh number two, Putin made it very clear that well uh we are quite capable of shooting that down.
	It's a subsonic uh munition.
	It only travels at around 500 miles per hour.
	That's fast, but it's not supersonic.
	All right, here's here's exactly what you're talking about out of the mouth of uh President Putin Chris Cut number 12.
	It's dangerous.
	As for the Tomahawks, it's a powerful arm.
	Perhaps not the most modernized, but it's powerful, poses serious threat.
	This will not change in any way the balance of powers on the battlefield, the fundamental issues of the armed forces of Ukraine, no matter how many UAVs they get.
	And no matter how many lines they create with those UAVs, without the personnel, there will be no one to lead those Battles.
	They have to change the tactics.
	Will this pose damage to our relations?
	Where we see light at the end of the tunnel?
	Of course.
	Of course.
	Using tomahawks without direct involvement of the U.S. officers is impossible.
	Which means a brand new stage of escalation, even between in the relations between Russia and the U.S. So Ray, uh Ritter tells me, Larry, I think you'll agree that the Tomahawk is nuclear capable.
	So what happens in the following scenario?
	Some lieutenant at a Russian lieutenant is looking at a radar screen, and the colonel's behind him and goes, Colonel, I see a tomahawk coming toward Moscow.
	I don't know what it's carrying.
	What do the Russians do, Ray?
	Uh Judge will never come to that.
	The tomahawks will never arrive in Ukraine.
	The Russians have that covered like a blanket.
	There are no tomahawks to spare.
	Um and the ones that have nuclear capability, I'm not sure if they're any around if we could give it to the Ukrainians.
	Uh what I look at from that little clip from uh Putin is he's saying, look, you know, even if they got tomahawks, it's not going to change anything in number one.
	And if they actually got them, they don't have any people to man them.
	Now then he says, look, uh, we had Heimar's, we had all that stuff.
	Did that change anything?
	No, it didn't change anything.
	Uh what else?
	Well, attack them and all that kind of stuff.
	Well, they could be saturated, but it's not going to change anything.
	Then he says, Oh, well, this he's asked, will this damage our relationship?
	He said, Oh, there's no other answer but to say yes.
	But he includes, yeah, we were seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.
	This would subjunctive mood damage our relationship.
	Now, they're counting on the president not approving this, despite the Kellogg and everyone else.
	Uh Lavrov said that two days prior to what Putin said yesterday, and of course, Kellech has spoken two days before that.
	Uh it's kind of uh a red herring.
	Uh there are no troops that man them.
	The United States is not going to do them.
	I think that Mikkoff and Putin have already been talking, or Whitkoff and Lavrov saying, look, uh, this we have to say this to please our European friends.
	And that's precisely what Lavroff said to excuse this, saying, look, this is just a Philip to the uh to the Europeans.
	We do not think any decision has been taken, period, end quote by Lavrov.
	That was two days ago.
	So I'm saying this is a big cause celebration, but it has more to do with the the European allies, so to speak, who want to push, push, push, and they're aided and abetted by Kellogg.
	It's not gonna amount to much.
	And what Putin is saying here is the necessary.
	Yeah, this would damage our relationship.
	So Boche is not going to happen, and it's certainly not going to change the course of the war.
	Larry, tell me what you think of this.
	I know it's gonna aggravate the three of us.
	It's uh Kellogg on his high horse, Chris number one.
	Are you saying, though, that it is the president's position that Ukraine can conduct long right long-range strikes into Russia, that that has been authorized by the president?
	I think reading what he has said and reading what Vice President Vance has said as well as Secretary Rubio, the answer is yes, use the ability to hit deep.
	There are no such things as sanctuaries.
	That's one of the reasons I believe that this last week and it has been confirmed that uh President Zelensky asked President Trump to get tomahawk missiles, which give you uh a depth, they're really good systems.
	America makes the best systems in the world.
	Are we giving them the Tomahawks?
	Well, that decision has not been made, but he's asked I know that President Zelensky did in fact ask for them, which was confirmed by our uh social media post by Vice President Advance.
	That's gonna be up to the president to do it.
	Sounds like Kellogg thinks that these things are sitting around in a warehouse ready to be delivered, Larry.
	I'm surprised that it is ignorance on this, and uh just to uh put an additional exclamation point of what Ray said, the United States deactivated, I think 20, 25 years ago, the nuclear option on its ground launched uh tomahawks.
	So there are no more nuclear tipped.
	They're capable, yeah.
	You can you can create make them in such a way that they'd be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
	But uh apparently the United States got rid of that option as part of the whole arms control process with Russia back in the day.
	Uh so that leaves the air launched and the sea launched, which sorry, Ukraine, Ukraine's not getting any of those.
	Well, they don't even have the aircraft to launch it with.
	And if any aircraft goes up with such a missile, it's gonna be shot down.
	So uh, you know, Kellogg, but but it's not just Kellogg that's the problem.
	If I if you've seen Cy Hirsch's letters piece, he's talking to senior officials, he doesn't specify whether you know which agency or but it's in the in the Trump administration.
	Um, but I'm inclined to think it's still somebody out at CIA.
	Um, and and God, the the the line of uh of horse manure they're feeding them is unbelievable.
	Uh about oh, yeah, well, we're gonna just have to put more military pressure because that'll that'll cause Putin to break.
	And I mean, these guys haven't been paying attention.
	And you know, uh I think the world at Gil Doctorow, but he was on uh, I think in another show this earlier this week saying that oh, you know, the the elites in Moscow really are getting upset with uh Putin and Putin could be gone.
	If you watched Putin at Val Dai yesterday, the man was as relaxed as could be spent an hour speaking at the podium and then sat down and answered questions.
	But unlike the droning of Donald Trump and his monotone voice and talking about me, me, me, me, me, I hear you had Putin talking in full complete sentences, doing analysis, and again, not showing any kind of panic, not saying, Oh my, yeah, those we're gonna react you know emotionally to the United States.
	None of that.
	So uh there's a lot of there's a lot of disinformation out there, and I attributed a lot of it to panic.
	Ray, here is uh President Trump at what, in my view, was the lowest point uh in his speech the other day.
	Um I think it was extemporaneous, it didn't appear as though he was reading it uh from the prompter.
	And I'm sure if this had been in the text, his advisors would have done their best to get him not to say it.
	You probably know what this is.
	Chris number seven.
	San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles.
	They're very unsafe places, and we're gonna straighten them out one by one.
	And this is gonna be a major part for some of the people in this room.
	That's a war, too.
	It's a war from within.
	Controlling the physical territory of our border is essential to national security.
	We can't let these people in.
	We're under invasion from within.
	No different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways because they don't wear uniforms.
	At least when they're wearing a uniform, you can take them out.
	These people don't have uniforms.
	I told Pete we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for military national guard, but military.
	Does this terrify you, Ray McGovern, as it does me, knowing that the Secretary of War, as he calls himself, will do whatever the president wants, including murder people of the high seas, which apparently he did either yesterday uh or today, and today's he announced it today.
	I'm not sure when it happened.
	And now the president is saying I said to Pete, meaning Heg Seth, I want the troops to practice to practice what on Americans.
	Well, Judge, uh, it was an interesting spectacle on Tuesday after Pete uh sort of strutted around the stage, in came the president with the music stop.
	There was silence.
	The generals ramard straight.
	No applause.
	This is amazing.
	I come in here, there's no applause.
	Well, please, I mean, feel free to applaud if you if you don't want to applause, that's okay.
	And uh and you know, uh, you can leave the room if you don't like something I say, but there would go your rank, there we go, your future.
	Now, if I were one of those generals, and that's why I'm not one of those generals, I would have got up and walked out then, okay.
	Now, there's lots of excuses where no one walked out then.
	But when the president said, Look, I think I used you in the cities, I'm gonna violate posse comutatus, willy-nilly, uh, you're gonna be training in our cities, and we're gonna then somebody with guts, some general would have got up and walked out.
	And I dare say there would have been 10 more after.
	I mean, there's more important things than rank or futures, okay.
	There's an oath that they took to the constitution, not to the president.
	So that was most revealing to most revealing thing.
	I mean, I couldn't abide hitzick, neither could they, but it's the other automatons, they're gonna follow orders and no matter there was no kind of overt response, no nothing.
	When he said you can you lose your rank and you lose your future, there was a little bit of laughter.
	My God.
	So that's what the we armed forces we have has come to.
	And you, Judge, have made a point of how illegal and how in unconstitutional all this.
	And you know, if we're gonna be winter soldiers of the kind that Tom Payne uh asked for, we gotta go up and stay and get our generals, the ones that speak truth to power, uh, to say whether they're retired or not.
	To say what the truth is, and that generals and admirals and big, big uh NCOs uh should not be obliged and in duty to the Constitution are required not to be obliged to obey unlawful orders, having them oppress people in these United States of America.
	Ray McGovern, you are so right on the mark in your understanding of the Constitution.
	Now, when Chris gave me this, I said, I can't play this for the for the guys that's gonna turn their stomachs because it turns mine.
	We're gonna play it anyway.
	This is Stephen Miller, the day after Trump said, I want rehearsals in the streets.
	You tell me who this sounds like, number 14.
	We are about to provide you with a level of support you cannot even imagine.
	This isn't just a task force, this is a all of government unlimited support operation.
	ATF, DEA, FBI, ICE, Department of War, every resource we have.
	We are sending in real cops with guns and badges to go out with you on the street every single night making arrests.
	I pledge to you, we will liberate this city from the criminal element that has plagued it for generations.
	The idea that there is a square inch of block in this city where a citizen doesn't feel safe is unacceptable.
	This is Memphis, this is the United States of America, and all that bullshit is done.
	It's over, it's finished.
	Sounds like uh Berlin in 1930.
	Yeah, you know, we there's not enough understanding or talk about, you know, I guess the Trump people think they're doing it under the insurrection act, but uh then there's posse comitators.
	Now, I think the reason it was passed in 1879, part of that was uh sort of the aftertaste of have what Lincoln did with U.S. troops during the Civil War, and the recognition that uh normally we don't want federal troops to be able to go in and operate in cities because they're not at war with the American citizen, right?
	No matter how unhappy those American citizens might be.
	American citizens have the right to protest.
	And uh, you know, this the notion uh this failure to understand the the military mindset as opposed to the law enforcement mindset.
	The fundamental thing about law enforcement mindset is ultimately to de-escalate conflict if possible.
	Force is used Only as a last resort.
	Whereas in the military, it is the training is that if you encounter any opposition, you escalate.
	You don't de-escalate.
	You don't look for a way to avoid contact.
	You go out and look for contact.
	And those two mentalities create very, very different outcomes.
	So it'd be one thing if you deploy National Guard who had a military police background, uh, that at least they understand something of that mentality.
	But to treat this as an insurrection right now is entirely inappropriate.
	And this uh, you know, if they've gone into Memphis with the National Guard with the governor's governor's uh approval and deployment, then you know that's under the Constitution.
	Uh, I don't have a problem with bringing together all the federal resources, the law enforcement resources you talked about in terms of FBI, DEA, U.S. Marshals, ATF, but as long as it's done from the law enforcement uh standpoint, which precedes that anybody that's accused of anything is presumed innocent.
	What we've seen taking place with Trump, particularly off the coast of Venezuela, and trust me, these are connected.
	Is imagine you're a cop, you see two what you think is a drug exchange, you see two drug dealers, you think they're giving some drugs to somebody in a car and they're passing it off.
	The cops don't have the authority or the right, or not even the legal ability to get out and start shooting them because they think that they were involved with drug trafficking because drug trafficking is not a direct threat to your life.
	Whereas what Trump's doing is he's blowing these boats up on the suspicion that they're doing something illegal, and it's it it's it's it's criminal and it's uh you know, it by it violates everything about America that I believed in.
	Ray, I'll give you the last word.
	Well, you know, the question is whether there's real hope for our military, whether they really know their duty to support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
	That's the oath we all sign, all right?
	Give you a little vignette.
	I was speaking at Annapolis at the Naval Academy, second and third year people.
	Okay, I had a professor who was interested in enlightening his people about how the intelligence didn't work or worked uh before Iraq to justify this evasion.
	Now, we talked about the constitution a little bit, you know, and we talked about the president, and then I said, now you all swore an oath coming in here.
	Uh who is that oath to?
	Uh the president.
	Anybody else?
	Yeah, the president.
	Of course, the president.
	I said that's wrong.
	I'm surprised that they don't know this wrong.
	Your oath is to the constitution of the United States, not to the president, specifically and explicitly not to the president.
	Well, what's that?
	What's what's the difference?
	Well, here's the difference.
	In 1973, an Air Force nuclear missile officer named Harold Herring asked a simple question at a training session.
	How can I know that an order I receive to launch my missiles came from a sane president?
	That goes back to my saying that as the young people say today, the president of the United States, the commander in chief, is not okay.
	Okay.
	So the question cost him his career, okay.
	But today, both the man who can order the use of arms and the men who would likely verify such an order gave an unnerving disgraceful performance in Quantanamo.
	How many officers left the room asking themselves Mayor Herring's question?
	How can I know that an order that I should receive an order to launch my missiles came from a sane president?
	That's where we are here.
	And good people like Colonel Wilkerson tell me, no, Ray, don't give up on the military.
	There's still some good people in there.
	I just hope Larry is right, and then I'm wrong on this particular one.
	For all of his faults, here's uh General Milley articulating rather forcefully what Ray just said.
	You See, we in uniform are unique.
	We are unique among the world's armies.
	We are unique among the world's militaries.
	We don't take an oath to a country.
	We don't take an oath to a tribe.
	We don't take an oath to a religion.
	We don't take an oath to a king or a queen or to a tyrant or a dictator.
	And we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator.
	We don't take an oath to an individual.
	We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that it's America, and we're willing to die to protect it.
	Every soldier, sailor, airman, marine, guardian, and coast guardsman, each of us commits our very life to protect and defend that document, regardless of personal price.
	And we are not easily intimidated.
	Well, you wouldn't know that the other day, Larry.
	I have to run, but I'll give you the last word on it.
	Yep.
	Support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
	He was a fat guy, but he was right.
	I'm that happy, you know.
	First time the three of us have left in 35 minutes.
	We'll end.
	Thank you, gentlemen.
	I look forward to seeing you on Monday.
	God bless you both.
	Have a great weekend.
	Thank you, Judge.
	Thank you.
	On Monday, as usual, at eight in the morning, Alistair Crook at 10, Ray McGovern at 11:30, Larry Johnson, and some of your favorites in the afternoon.

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